When Laury Robertson first began deliberating the fate of James Vernon Allridge in an anonymous jury room of a Texas courthouse, she was a shy, intimidated, 21-year-old hospital secretary anxious to get home to a waiting toddler and utterly confused as to the judge’s instructions.

The decision she made that day – to sentence Allridge, then also 21, to death after only three hours of deliberation – has been a decision she has regretted for 17 years, since Allridge reached Texas’s Death Row.

Allridge’s life ended there at 6:22 p.m. yesterday, when he was executed by lethal injection in front of friends, family members, and his victim’s family after a failed series of lengthy appeals to state courts, the state Pardon and Parole Board, and the U.S. Supreme Court to commute his sentence to life imprisonment. All were unanimously denied.

It was one of the initial jurors, Ms. Robertson, who now claims the judge’s instructions in Allridge’s trial were misleading and unclear.

“I wish I could have made a different decision. I never knew that I could have said, ‘No,'” Ms. Robertson told the Sun in a telephone interview from her home in Fort Worth only a few hours before Allridge’s execution. “I felt rail roaded into making that decision, not by the other jurors, but by the judge, who told us ‘You will come to a decision,’ and never told us there were different options for the sentencing.”

If she had her choice, she said, she would have voted for life imprisonment, not death. “I didn’t think I could change my mind,” she added, “and I came out of the courtroom with a completely changed view of the jury process, the punishment process. This is something I wish I could undo.”

Ms. Robertson is not alone. She is one of four initial jurors who have since claimed they would have retracted sentencing Allridge to death after the Fort Worth resident and his older brother, Ronald, were both found guilty of murdering a 21-year-old convenient store clerk, Brian Clendennen, after stealing $300.

Allridge’s execution has also trigged outrage among some correction officers working on Texas’s Death Row. They claim Allridge, 41, had completely rehabilitated himself, earning a college degree and becoming a self-taught artist who sold his intricate sketches of flowers for as much as $500 to support his legal fees. He also corresponded with a Hollywood actress and death penalty activist, Susan Sarandon, who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of death penalty opponent Helen Prejean in the movie “Dead Man Walking.” Sister Prejean was among those who witnessed the execution.

Clendennen’s family members have dismissed Allridge’s arguments for appeal and say he should not be able to profit from their loss.

“It’s not hard to change on death row. Did he give my brother a chance to change and grow? Just because this guy stands up and says he’s sorry for what he’s done, well, I’m sorry for a lot of things I’ve done, too, but I still had to pay for it,” Clendennen’s brother, Shane Clendennen, told the Chicago Tribune.

The Texas correction officers, who submitted affidavits in support of Allridge, contended that the inmate was no longer a “continued threat to society” – a controversial burden of proof Texas jurors are required to find to hand down death sentences.

Ms. Robertson is especially skeptical. “How could we judge if James would be a continued threat?” she said. “How in the world could we have judged that – especially with what little information we were given?”

Of the country’s 925 executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, more than one third, or 325, have been administered in Texas. There are currently 456 prisoners on Death Row in Texas.

Allridge’s defense attorneys and supporters also argued that previous lawyers failed to mention his upbringing as a Jehovah’s Witness and his abusive relationship with his brother Ronald, who was executed in 1995.

“This was a waste of a completely transformed and truly gifted individual who was not the same person who committed his crime,” said a friend of Allridge and founder of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Dan Atwood, who witnessed yesterday’s execution.

“What kind of message does this send to prisoners?” Mr. Atwood said. “The lesson of James Allridge is that he went farther than anyone else on Death Row could go in terms of rehabilitation all by himself, and it wasn’t worth anything in the courts.”

For his last meal, Allridge requested a double bacon cheeseburger, crinkle cut French fries, banana pudding or banana ice cream, watermelon, and white seedless grapes.

“I am sorry; I really am,” he said in a last statement, thanking his family and apologizing to his victim’s. “I am sorry I destroyed you all’s lives. Thank you for forgiving me. To the moon and back, I leave you all as I came. I love you all.”